


Partners

by frank_lee



Category: Community (TV)
Genre: F/M, alternative universe
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-26
Updated: 2020-05-27
Packaged: 2021-03-03 03:34:23
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,414
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24398092
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/frank_lee/pseuds/frank_lee
Summary: Alternative Season 6.Britta realizes she's pregnant.
Relationships: Ian Duncan/Britta Perry
Kudos: 12





	Partners

Britta Perry woke up late for her Monday community college class, so it was very obvious that things in her life were not going particularly well. If she hurried she could make it to class on time, but probably not. She looked next to her, to find as she bitterly expected, an empty yet messy side of the pullout sofa bed. She laid back in bed, looking up at the ceiling. A fantastic way to start the week.

By the time she got to school, things barely seemed better. The study room was empty. She was really late, slinking into the back of her "Ethics of Psychology" classroom, sliding into her chair in the back of the class.

Duncan, at the head of the room, caught her eye, tapping on his watch, while he continued his lecture, in front of a chalkboard that had the word "vagina" underlined three times. She was always late for everything, so no one should have expected anything different. Or anything better.

She flipped open her textbook. At the end of class, she scribbled the latest diorama assignment into her day planner, a new semester resolution to be more organized and figure out her life. Everything was changing around her, so maybe if she could properly utilize her day planner, she wouldn't be left behind. Her last diorama was late, so the next one couldn't be. Maybe she'd be able to graduate by the end of the year with the guidance of her new day planner.

Except something else was late. She noticed that her period was scrawled in messy cursive at the beginning of September. It was September 28.

"To make the project easier, you can choose partners. Or not, I don't care," Duncan said, before walking out of the classroom before anyone else even got the chance to pack up.

Britta grabbed all of her stuff, shoving it into her bag.

"Hey Britta, do you want to be partners?"

"Not now, Todd!" she shouted, hurrying out of the classroom, day planner clutched to her chest. She had been sick the day before. Britta had assumed that it was just because she drank all of that expired coconut water. Not because...because...She couldn't even begin to admit it to herself. She went to the cafeteria, slipping into a booth against the wall, slamming open her day planner once again. She flipped back to August. Had she even had her period then? Was she two months late? Was that possible?

Two months late?

"What's 'two months late?'" Jeff asked as he slid into the booth across from her.

Damn it. She had to stop thinking out loud. Britta slammed her planner shut, "Nothing."

"Why'd you say it then?"

"I...I am rehearsing for a play."

"What play?"

"Why do you care? You're not coming."

"Touché," Jeff said, pulling open his yogurt container, "Anyway, Frankie wants buy-in from more of the staff. I was thinking of asking Duncan to rejoin the Committee. Are you going to be weird about it?"

"Why would I be weird about it?"

"Because you hooked up at the Fourth of July party," Jeff said.

"I'm as cool as a cucumber. Anyway, I was on my period at Fourth of July," Britta said, "You know, so there."

"You showed me," Jeff said, "So you didn't hook up at Fourth of July?"

"Nope."

But they did hook up on July 15, July 23, July 24, and July 31. And sixteen times in August, according to the corresponding sixteen checkmarks in her day planner on the month of August calendar.

"So I'll invite him."

"Great, invite him."

"I am!" Jeff said.

"Great!"

Britta was not exactly sure why she was even shouted, but she grabbed her day planner anyway, to stomp out of the cafeteria for dramatic effect.

"Why are we arguing?" Jeff shouted after her.

Britta couldn't find it within herself to tell Jeff why she was picking a fight, so she left anyway. Britta decided to make a trip to the school store, browsing the pharmacy section, perfectly casually. She picked out a pregnancy test, a bottle of Tylenol gel caps, a package of blue pens, and a Greendale Dad mug. Vicki made a face when she scanned the pregnancy test and the mug in succession. That was a bad choice.

Britta got to the Save Greendale Committee meeting late. She took her normal seat. Everyone was in their normal seat, with Duncan in the usually empty seat between Jeff and Annie. It seemed perfectly normal. Or like it could be perfectly normal. Britta, instead, felt like she was on the verge of a nervous breakdown. She knew that one bad look from Frankie could result in Britta confessing everything. Not only that she was possibly pregnant but also that she had been the one to steal all of the donuts from the time Elroy brought them to the meeting so that she could have a second lunch.

"Britta!" Annie said, "Jeff said that you're going to be in a play? When is it? Is there still a chance to audition? Abed and I definitely want to do it!"

"It's our last year here, so we want to get all of our college experiences done," Abed said, "What play is it?"

What was the last play she saw? Not Annie's anti-drug play. She had to be more cultured than that, right? She couldn't think of any play, but Abed was looking at her expectantly, so she said, " _Star Wars_."

" _Star Wars_ is being adapted as a play and I didn't know?" Abed said.

Frankie said, "I didn't know there was a performance so early in the school year."

"It's underground."

"You're in an underground adaptation of _Star Wars_?"

"It's run by the Anarchist Club," Britta said.

"The Anarchist Club is putting on an underground adaption of _Star Wars_?"

"We have an Anarchist Club?" Frankie asked, "They haven't registered with the Extracurricular Committee."

"They're anarchists! They're not going to register with anyone!"

"Where can we audition?" Abed asked, "I want to play Han. Which movie is it based on?"

"I don't know. All of them?"

"All six movies?"

"Yeah!"

"So, it's a twelve-hour play based on all six _Star Wars_ movies?" Jeff asked, "It's almost like you just made it up."

"Well, it's not made up. It's very real," Britta nodded. Damn it. She was going to have to do some intense shenanigans with a fake anarchist drama club on top of potentially being pregnant. She penciled the play into her day planner. Perhaps, it was possible for her to pull this all off, with the aid of a day planner.

*

"So, in what world is the Anarchist Club, which I doubt exists, running a marathon play about _Star Wars_?" Jeff asked as Britta left the bathroom near the study room; he was leaning against the wall, looking pretty cool. Britta shoved her pregnancy test into her jacket pocket.

"Well, you are going to feel silly, one day in the relatively near future for making fun of true art," Britta said.

"I can't wait to see this," Jeff said, pushing off the wall. He walked down the hall.

Britta nodded vigorously. She was going to have to track down all six _Star Wars_ scripts and start working on the costumes. She wasn't too worried about casting. Surely, Abed could convince a bunch of nerds to play Chewbacca and C-3PO or whatever. Or maybe her cat could play Chewbacca?

With Jeff safely halfway down the hall, Britta took the pregnancy test out of her pocket and stared at it.

"+"

Damn.

Britta's phone vibrated in her other pocket. She checked it. A text from Duncan, "8==D."

Double damn.

*

Britta sat across from Duncan's empty seat at the hightop table in the Ballroom, one of the few bars that they could go to in Greendale, where the rest of the group would ordinarily not find them. She had her half-drunk glass of water and Duncan's mostly empty beer glass in front of her. She rested her elbow on the edge of the table, pointer finger knuckle pressed to her mouth. She had the complete collection of _Star Wars_ screenplays from the library her bag, an unnecessary task that she had assigned to herself.

Before he left for the bathroom, Duncan had spent their whole time together complaining about his students and the Dean, as well as recounting an argument with Jeff that Britta had been present for. Britta could not focus on the conversation at hand, instead choosing to imagine how Duncan would take the news, how would he react. Would he throw the rest of his beer in her face? Maybe he would fail her.

Duncan returned to the table, slamming his wet hands on the table, shattering Britta's daydream, "So what's the plan for tonight? Your couch or my place?"

Britta blurted out, "I'm pregnant," in response.

Duncan froze. She almost could not tell if time had just stopped. Were it not for "Vengabus" playing in the bar, Britta would have assumed she ha died.

Britta had planned on an elaborate speech, heavy with beautiful metaphor. But whiffed it. Whiffed it hard.

"Are you going to say anything?"

Silence. Well, not silence. The song had switched over to another Vengaboys song that she had been previously unaware of.

"I mean, I'm just saying. You don't have to say anything," Britta said hastily, desperately hoping to rescue whatever wreckage of a conversation she found herself in, "Like, you don't have to do anything with this. And I mean it. I figured you should know. Just because. You know."

He still hadn't moved.

"I mean, it's the twenty-first century and everything. I'm thirty-two and I figure if I want to have a kid, this is as good a time as it's going to get. I mean, I can do this. I mean, I don't have health insurance or any savings or a good job or...oh no. This is not good," Britta said, now feeling like the bottom of her stomach had dropped out. Fearful nausea flooded her senses.

"Maybe it's a mistake?" Duncan suggested, his voice smaller than usual, "You took a test, right? Maybe it was faulty."

“Yeah!It was probably busted! Duh!” Britta said, hitting herself on the forehead with the heel of her hand.She wasn’t a complete fool, delusional about everything in her life.Only kind of.

Britta and Duncan went to the convenience store around the corner from the Ballroom, where they grabbed one of each pregnancy test available.Duncan said, “To be certain.”

He paid.Then, they went to her apartment, which she shared with Abed and Annie, which Duncan usually only visited after they went to sleep.

“Are your roommates here?”

“No, they’ve joined the Paintball Planning Committee, so they’re coming home late,” Britta said, dropping her bag on her couch bed, “Definitely enough time to figure this out.”

Five positive tests later, the air in the apartment was thick with desperation.Britta drank Abed’s orange juice out of her new Greendale Dad mug to replenish her fluids for another pregnancy test, “How does this one work?”

“This one should either say ‘pregnant’ or ‘not pregnant,’” Duncan read from the box.It was the last box left.They put all of the used tests in it, to be disposed of at a safe distance from the apartment.

“Sounds easy enough.”

“I wish you weren’t drinking out of that,” Duncan said.

“It’s the only clean cup in the apartment,” Britta replied.

“Well, it feels like a threat.”

“If this last one is positive, then it’s your mug.”

“That is definitely a threat,” Ducan said, sitting down next to Britta, “By any chance, do you have a better plan?If this last test is positive?And thus, we are absolutely certain.”

Britta took another gulp of orange juice, “My monologue at the bar was pretty much my whole plan, so no.I kind of half-assed this, like I’ve half-assed everything in my life.”

“But you want to keep the baby, right?”

“Yeah.I always thought I wanted kids, but I was never in a situation where I thought having a kid would be a good idea.”

“And now that you’re sleeping on a pullout bed…”

“I mean, I feel like this is it, so it’s kind of now or never.And like I said before, I mean it, you don’t have to, if you don’t want to…do anything, you know?I’ll figure it out. I'll talk to my parents or whatever.”

“To be honest, I never thought I would ever be a father,” Duncan shrugged, “So…maybe this is okay?And you live on a pull-out couch, so at least, I can provide some sort of stability. You know, I have a dishwasher.”

“It’s good to know I’ve got a partner in this.”

Britta went to take her sixth pregnancy test of the night.She studied the test that read “pregnant” for a second by herself.She smiled at it.Britta stopped and looked up at the mirror.What was she even feeling?Good or bad?Someplace in between?

Britta opened the bathroom door, saying, “I guess you’re going to be the owner of a new mug.Oh!”

“Ah, Britta!” Duncan said, finishing a long sip from the Greendale Dad mug, “I was just explaining to your roommates why I am in their apartment…”

Abed and Annie stood in the entryway of the apartment, both visibly confused.

“He actually didn’t tell us anything,” Abed said, “He’s been pretending to drink that orange juice for a long time.”

“We’re co-writing the _Star Wars_ musical together,” Britta said, holding her latest pregnancy test behind her back.

“Wait.It’s a musical now?” Duncan said.

“I didn’t know you were an anarchist, Professor,” Annie said.

“Yes, the government is a machine running on lies, but I would like to say that writing a musical is—“

“It’s hard, but rewarding work,” Britta said, “How’s the Paintball Planning Committee going?”

“Frankie is trying to ban paintball from campus,” Annie said, “It’s a real downer.This year is going to be so different.Do you guys want to take a break and play the Earz Have It?”

“I’m up for that,” Britta said, looking to Duncan, “What about you?”

“I definitely could use a break from adapting _The Empire Strikes Back_ to music.”

And it was very easy to forget about their problems for a couple of hours.


End file.
